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Hey, what's up, this is Leo for actualised.org. And today I want to cover the topic of mastery. I think this is one of the most important topics in self development. Because it applies to really life in general, and everything that you do in life, anything that you want to get good at in life, which ultimately brings you all the success that you want. So whether it's being good in relationships, or being good in business, or being good in your career, being good at sports, being good at crafts, hobbies, cooking, I mean, pretty much you name it, anything under the sun mastery is going to be important for and this is such a such a powerful concept that I cannot stress how important it is to understand this, and it's not going to happen in one go. So listen through this video, read the article below, go through it a few times and see how you can apply in your life. So what is mastery? Well, mastery is this idea. Coming from a book, by the way called Mastery by George Leonard, brilliant little book, I really encourage you to read it, you'll find links to it in the article below is the idea that human beings develop proficiency at things. So there's a certain natural process to getting good at anything. And there are few other books like The Talent Code and talent is overrated, which also mesh very well with this mastery idea, which talks about the fact that there's this notion floating around in, in culture that some people are more talented than other people. And that if you're not talented at something, then that's Oh, well, that's just the way it's supposed to be. And nothing can be done about that. Mastery on the on the other hand, tells you that you can get good at things, and that there's a very scientific way actually to go about it. And that there's a natural process to getting good at something, whether it's being good at your tennis backhand, or being good at golf, or being an awesome chef, or just kidding as to your career, whatever those cases may be, to get good at it, there's a certain process that goes into the that goes into it. There are also certain mindsets that you want to bring into it, that are going to ensure that you become a master. And this is important, because most people are not masters. In fact, 99% of people are dabblers, and they just try stuff out. And then they go on to something else. So they tried to get good at golf, and they fail, they try to get good at doing their job, and they're mediocre at it. And they jump around from one job to the other, they never really become excellent. So what we're talking about here is becoming very excellent at what you do in whatever it is you choose to do. So what you choose to do is not so important as the fact that you just want to be excellent at it. And the reason, this whole notion and understanding of mastery is important is because it just normalizes what you're doing. The biggest problem that I found with mastery is that if you don't understand how the process is supposed to go, you tend to have naive notions about how it should go. And those naive notions ultimately lead you to failure. There are a couple of mindsets that are very counterproductive to mastery. So those are the ones that I want to cover. And I also want to cover, you know what kind of mindsets you do need to become good mastery. So let's go into this and talk about the real and the imaginary mastery curve. Now I have images of these two curves down on in the article. But basically, what we're talking about here is that when people want to get good at something, so let's say you want to get good at what do you want to be good at? Let's say you want to get good at tennis, right? This is a classic example that that George Leonard uses in the book, you want to get good at tennis? Well, you can come in there, most people come in there with the imaginary curve, learning curve expectation. So the imaginal, the imaginary learning curve, what does that look like? Well, that looks like this. It looks like if you have a graph, you're gonna have the x axis, which has the amount of effort that you're putting in, then you're gonna have the y axis, which is how much gain you're getting for the for the amount of effort you're putting in. So people assume that, the more the more effort they put in, the more gain they're gonna get, so that they assume it's like a one to one relationship. Right? So if I go and I practice tennis, I'm just gonna get a little bit better each day. If I do it for a month, I'll be so good. If I do it for a few years, I'll be really good. If I do it for 10 years, I'll probably be ready to compete professionally. Right, and it's just going to go smoothly for you. That's what I call the imaginary curve. Then there's the real curve. Now the real curve is totally different. And this is where a lot of people screw up. It's To the real curve, it is like a staircase. So basically what you've got is you've got putting in a little bit of effort, and then getting a little bit of return. In in terms of your improvement, you put in a lot more effort, you get another gradual return on, on improvement, you get another improvement. And then you put in a little bit more and you a little bit more. But notice that it's a stair step, kind of curve. And the stair step nature of it tells you that there are these things called plateaus, and they tend to be pretty long. And so what is a plateau plateau is a period where you're putting in effort, but you're not seeing any improvement. Now, this is the thing that throws most people off and why mat understanding mastery is so important and keep it in your in the forefront of your mind is very important whenever you're undertaking something new. Because if you expect that you're always going to be getting upward growth and progress over time, without any plateaus, then you're really living in Fantasyland. And you're setting a sort of setting yourself up for failure because you're setting expectations that no one can meet. And it's not just average, people can't meet them, nobody can meet them, no matter how talented you are, you're never just going to experience a steady smooth progression in your skills, you have to work towards it, you have to cultivate it, you have to practice it. And as you do that, you'll get some improvements. And you might get a lot of improvement. But that improvement is not going to come linearly, it's going to come erratically and there are going to be plateaus. So how do you really deal with the plateau? Well, there are a couple of ways that I kind of sussed out here. So one is to really this idea of bracing yourself. So let's say you're gonna go and decide to become good at tennis, and you've never played tennis before. Well, if you're naive, and you want a high degree of failure, in that whole endeavor, then you just go and start swinging, swinging a tennis racket and expecting that you're gonna become great. That's the naive way to do it. The more enlightened way to do it, if you understand mastery, is to come in there and kind of brace yourself and tell yourself, you know what, this is going to be a challenge. And I have to expect that I'm gonna there gonna be periods here where I'm going to be putting in effort, and I'm not going to be seeing any result. And that's okay, because I know that that's how life works. I know, that's how skills are learned. And I'm not going to just expect smooth sailing, there gonna be bumps, there may be even periods where I lose a little bit of skills. And there's certainly going to be periods where I feel like I'm putting in a lot of work, and I'm not gaining anything. So bracing yourself with that sets up some realistic expectations, which means that in the future, when that reality hits you, it's not blindsiding you, you're kind of prepared for it. And really, the other aspect of that, that was for the case of when you're undertaking something new, maybe it's a new job, maybe it's a new diets, workout regimen, whatever. The second case is where you're already in the middle of it. So maybe you're already in the middle of up some project, let's say you're in the middle of writing a book. Well, if you're in the middle of writing a book, you're gonna have periods where if you're doing something ambitious, something long term, something that takes days, weeks, months to do something that adds together and cumulative steps, then you're gonna have periods where you're gonna get disheartened. And in the case of writing a book, you know, maybe you've written a couple of chapters, you're a few months into it, but you still have most of it to go. And you're starting to doubt yourself. And you're starting to tell yourself, well, you know, my writing is not as great as I thought it was, I thought I would be so much. I thought my writing would have improved as I was writing the first few chapters, but it hasn't. So you're really getting down on yourself. And how mastery helps you there is to really tell yourself that, no, you're doing fine. You're just on a plateau. Right? If you're putting in deliberate effort, if you're practicing, if you're sitting at the computer every day and typing, you're doing what you should be doing, right? I mean, there's a difference between doing that and not doing anything. So if you're slacking off watching TV, obviously, then there's something else wrong there. And we're not going to go into that. But if you're sitting there and you're typing and you're just unsatisfied with the results you're getting, well, there might be some tweaks you could make. I'm not saying that you're perfect, or that you're doing it even the right way. Maybe there's a totally better way to write but the fact is that you're taking action, and chances are you're moving well along that mastery curve. You're going to become a master writer. It'll just take you years to do it. And it's not just going to be smooth sailing, it's not going to be just, you know, an escalator right up, you're gonna have to take the steps and you're gonna spend a lot of time on those plateaus where you're typing stuff you're researching, you're, you're, you're learning grammar, and this and that, and you're perfecting your, your prose, and your writing style. And eventually, you're doing all that. But in the midst of it for a certain period of time, you might not see really any benefit. And then all of a sudden, you'll see a boost. And then again, you'll see nothing, and then you'll see another boost, and then you'll see nothing. So this is a natural process. So really, what what happens here is we're normalizing your expectations, both when you start a project, and when you're already in the middle of a project, and you're kind of ready to give up or you're feeling down on yourself. And then, of course, the other way to really deal with plateaus, besides just recognizing that they're there. And you'd be surprised, as simple as that sounds, how how easy it is to forget when you really need even a project that there are plateaus, constantly reminding yourself. And second point is really to be present, be more present in what you're doing. So this really goes to a much deeper understanding of mastery, as not just a couple of principles, or a couple of quick fix how to techniques. Mastery is really a mindset. Great example of this is, it's kind of the difference between the stereotypical difference between eastern and western culture. I remember, I was watching something on the Discovery Channel a while a long time ago, where they talked about the kind of artistry and mastery that goes into becoming a sushi chef in Japan. Now in Japan, being a sushi chef is like a revered culturally revered occupation, not like here or it's just like there's some code right? There. It's something that you really become a master at almost like becoming a samurai warrior, or a kung fu master or, or a monk, you know, that kind of stuff, things that you really put love and effort into. And so what they talked about with the sushi chefs in Japan, is that for the first, for the first two years of their training, all they do is they're taught to properly prepare rice, sushi rice, right? That's all they do for two years. Could you imagine that? If that's the kind of training you had to go through to become a sushi chef, could you have the stomach for it? Would you have the patience for that kind of like kind of meticulous attention to detail and to to your craft to mastery. So really what's happening there is those first few years there, the chefs are just learning to rinse the rice to prepare the rice to the perfect consistency, the perfect temperature level of doneness, make sure everything the taste is spot on, and how to choose the rice. So all these elements. And Now contrast that with the Western mindset or the kind of the Western way of thinking about getting good at something or getting even success. So in the east, we'll say that you have the sushi chef who spends a decade learning how to cut fish and prepare rice. And then in the West, you kind of have the polar opposite of that idea, which is just like, well, what would be a good example? Well, probably the best example is like shortcuts, like win the lottery get rich quick, some sort of get rich quick scheme that you see on a late night infomercial, about how you can start internet, your own internet business work from home earn over $100,000 a year with no efforts super easy, you don't need you don't need any capital. You don't need any knowledge. You don't need any skills anymore on conduits started in started in your basement. So all these kind of marketing all this market bullshit marketing lingo that is appealing to that. Western, maybe maybe it's more fair to call it like that American notion of like, give me give me what I want right now. Give it to me without any effort on my part. And make sure that it's just the way I like it. It's perfect. And and then let me move on to something else. So it's that kind of shortcut mentality where you're not putting it. Like you're not putting the love into it. You're not learning anything. It's that it's totally different from the mindset that you have with the Eastern Eastern stereotype. Where it's like you have that kung fu master that goes out in the early morning at the at the crack of dawn and stands there and practices meditation and his and his his standing positions in his routines. And he does that for 12 hours straight. And then he goes and he he writes in his little journal and he dissects every every little move every every fight that he's been in, and he dissects all the moves. And he masters that art. And he does that consistently for years. Even when I'm talking about it almost seems like because I grew up in this American culture of do stuff fast. Get me all the get me all the excitement without all the boredom. Without all the mundane, nitty gritty details, you know, I've kind of grown up in that. So it's really hard to pry yourself out of that, and put yourself more into that Eastern mindset. Here's the thing. And you might ask, Well, why did why should I want that Eastern mindset? Why? Why wouldn't I want the Western mindset? Isn't it better to just win the lottery? And then go do whatever the hell you want to do? Isn't it better to just, like, be super successful? Like, isn't it awesome to climb the corporate ladder within a few years, and be the head honcho, we'll get to know. I mean, if you're able to do that, and sustain it over the long haul, and you enjoy the process of all that, then great. The problem has to be is that that kind of thinking leads to a lot of failure leads to a lot of mediocrity. So you start something new, this is the classic, one of the classic examples that you start something new, like maybe a sport or a hobby or a job. And then you see just how much effort is involved with, with being successful at it with being good at it. And then as soon as you see that, you quit, and you start something new. And then that doesn't work for you. Because that also requires effort. Sure enough, and so you have to go and do something else. And that requires effort, too. And so what you find yourself doing is you find yourself bouncing from one thing to the next thing to the next, without really getting any, any true mastery built. And when you do that, well, first of all, you're really limiting your success. Because in the West, even though they get rich, quick mindset is enforced in the marketing. And like in the culture, that's what the culture values, but what does the culture actually reward? How do you actually get rich? How do you actually get a good reputation? How do you get all the all the kinds of rewards that you want in life, even in Western culture, it's actually through hard work. For some people, it doesn't come through hard work, they just get lucky. But unless you're that fortunate person, you're gonna have to rely on hard work. And most of the people out there that are very successful, that are rich, that are doing good, that have started businesses that are fit, that are healthy, they have great relationships, they've worked on all that stuff, that stuff did not come naturally to them, all that stuff required going through this stair step process that we talked about, right. Whereas most people assume that it's going to come easy. I mean, relationships are a great example, how people assume that relationships should just be natural, effortless, you're just in it, it feels great. There's no effort involved. Well, if you take that approach, it's a little bit hard to be successful in a relationship, you're gonna find that you actually have to work at it, you're gonna maybe have to read some books, you're gonna maybe have some conversations with people that you want to have conversations with, maybe you're gonna have to admit that you're doing certain things wrong and work on yourself. And that's a process that can be difficult. It can be painful at times. And it also goes in that stair step in that stair step fashion. So there's really this problem, if you grew up in America, that you're probably very much influenced by this western mindset that we talked about. And if you want to get very successful, and maybe right now, if you're thinking, Well, you know, like, I'm moderately successful, but I'm not as successful as I want to be like, I have so much more potential that I've been able to actualize so far. And you're kind of scratching your head, you're like, Huh, why is that? Why can I Why can't accomplish more? Well, I can guarantee you this probably because you don't have some element of this mastery mindset working for you. You're not applying mastery to your job. You're not applying mastery to your health, you're not applying it to your relationships, or any other thing that you need to feel accomplished and to feel like you're achieving all your potential. So starting to get this mindset into place is super, super important. Now, in the book, George Leonard talks about three attitudes, three common attitudes that are anti mastery. So these will will kill your success and will lead to failure in one way or another. And he gives them names. And he calls them the first one, the dabbler mindset. The second one is the obsessive mindset. And the third one is the hacker mindset. And then of course, the fourth one is the mastery mindset. So this is what we've been talking about all along. So let me just quickly go through these because I think you're gonna be able to really identify with a couple if not all three, or maybe just one. So the first one is the dabbler. What is the dabbler we already kind of mentioned this The dabbler is the person that is always seeking thrills. The dabbler is the one that always craves novelty. So he goes and he joins. He goes, he goes, and he joins the gym. And he goes, and he gets a new job. And he goes, and he starts playing tennis, and picks up another hobby. And he does great at it for a week, maybe two weeks. And then soon enough, he realizes, you know what, this thing? This thing is much harder than I thought it was. This is not so what I what I really thought it was going to be. That's not what I bargained for. And he always sees the grass greener on the other side. So he's like, Well, you know what, instead, why don't I? Instead of going to the gym, why don't I just why don't I do something else instead of that? The gym is isn't really my thing. It's not for me, I wasn't, I'm not really talented at the gym. I'm just, I'm just naturally not very athletic. And then you know, tennis? Well, tennis isn't really good. I'm not really good at hand eye coordination. Why don't I go do some other sport instead? Why don't I go do bicycling and fighting bicycle will be better nine, and then he goes into bicycle bicycling. And it's like, you know what, I'm not really good at being outdoors. I don't really like being outdoors, maybe I should go do something indoors. And then he'll go do that. And then oh, you know what the indoor thing. Also not really my style, maybe I really rather prefer to do something else. Maybe I'd rather do scuba diving, and we'll go do that. And then they'll do something else. So he's always bouncing from one thing to the next without ever putting the time in to get good at it. And that's because he's always looking for novelty. He's grown up on that. That kind of a jolt that you get from starting new things. Whenever you start something is kind of exciting. It's new, and then it wanes. And if you don't have discipline, and you don't have the right expectations and that mastery mindset in place, well, you're gonna give up on it. So if you are someone who's a dabbler, chances are your relationships are pretty short. chances are you'd like to start new hobbies without finishing them. Chances are you have a long resume, and all those jobs on your resume can be pretty short. Because you don't like to stick around in one spot too long, you get bored with it and move on. So there it's like boredom with the ordinary, you always need thrills. That's the dabbler. The second anti mastery mindset is the obsessive now what the obsessive does is he is really gung ho, and he jumps in whatever he's doing. So he goes to play tennis, he's gonna go all at it, he's going to put in extra time, he's going to invest extra money, he's gonna get the best rackets, the best equipment, he's going to spend an extra half an hour after class to learn all the points from the instructor. And he's going to go practice on weekends, and on weekdays, and he's going to read about it online, he's gonna buy books, and he's gonna get all his energy is going to get thrown into this one activity. And he's gonna do it with a lot of fervor and a lot of commotion. But eventually, what happens is that that pace that he has, it's ultimately unsustainable. So for a few weeks, he's doing great. But then eventually what happens is, and he because he gets those initial gains, from the initial effort that he puts in, he gets some of the gains. And he's happy about it. But what happens later is that he hits that first plateau, right? And he's not ready for it. He doesn't expect it. Because his thinking is like, well, if I put in so much effort, I should be getting more results than everybody else. And I shouldn't have to endure moments where I'm not improving. And so he gets that first plateau, he gets very frustrated. And then maybe he plows through it. And then he gets that second plateau. And he basically self destructs it's like a crash and burn. So the obsessive because he's putting he's really overextending himself, he tends to lead to catastrophic failure. And again, this this leads to starting stuff and never finishing it and never developing a mastery mindset. Because mastery is, is even keeled. Mastery is solid mastery is consistent. It's not spiky, right? It's not dramatic. It's not emotional. It's not always climactic. So the obsessive what are some, some kind of features of the obsessive well the obsessive tends to have rollercoaster relationships. The obsessive tends to have a lot of relationships that hurt other people. The obsessive tends to be very kind of chaotic and unstable with a lot of highs and lows, very high highs and very low lows. And they just tend not to be very consistent type of people. Maybe you know someone like this, maybe you know Have someone like this intimately? Hopefully not. So what's the third, the third is the hacker. Now the hacker is the kind of person who, who is pretty even keeled. And almost maybe even seems like he's kind of got that mastery mindset. But the problem with the hacker is, is that once he reaches a certain level of achievement or progress along that mastery curve, maybe halfway, he stops, he basically doesn't have a lot of ambition. So he gets, he gets comfortable somewhere on one of those plateaus along the way. And because mastery requires effort requires diligent practice. It requires learning, it requires expanding your comfort zone and your horizons. If the hacker is uncomfortable with that, if the hacker loves being safe, and loves being comfortable and doesn't like taking risks, then chances are he's not really going to advance to those top tiers of performance, that someone with a mastery mindset would. And so the hacker tends to be the kind of person that just does decent, but doesn't accomplish anything great. And that's not what we're what we're about here to actualize.org. So we're looking about ways, we're talking about ways to actualize you to get you to your full potential, right. And so if you're stuck on one of those rungs, then you're probably lacking a little bit of ambition. And that is the hacker, the hacker tends to have very stable and boring relationships, their life tends to be all the same, they tend to live in the same city for the rest of their life, they tend to be at the same job all the time, for the rest of their lives, because they're just in a very comfortable groove. And they also don't tend to grow, and they don't tend to accomplish great things. So those are three mindsets you really want to watch out for. And the alternative to all that, again, is mastery, the mastery mindset. So what is the mastery mindset? Well, we've talked a lot about a lot of the different facets of it already. But I think one of the key elements is that it's about being process oriented versus results oriented. And this is what I mean about being in the process, being in flow, and being present when you're in the mastery mindset. So it's teaching yourself that you're not after results, you're after about your after doing the process well, and enjoying the process. Because if you think about it, you know, if it takes you 10 years to become good at something, like if it takes you 10 years to become awesome at tennis or if it takes you 10 years to advance at your job, there's there's almost no way you're going to do that on on a short burst on a short, spiky burst of emotion, that's something that's going to have to come through discipline. And it also is not going to come through this kind of pressuring, and hard grinding discipline where you're grinding through, no one's going to be able to last for 10 years of grind, you might be able to last out a year of grind, maybe two, but not 10. And so you're never gonna become great, you're also gonna become resentful. So what you want to do is you want to instead of keeping your eye on the results, you want to keep your eye on the process of getting the results. Huge, huge, huge distinction, it's going to take some time to really condition that into you. And it's just you hearing it once it just doesn't do the concept justice. Here's the difference. And maybe you pride yourself actually on being a results oriented person. Like you pride yourself on getting results at job, you pride yourself at raising awesome kids, you pride yourself at being great at the hobbies that you're doing. You're pride yourself on being great friend, you pride yourself on all these things that you do so well. And all the results that you get. You know, that's well and good. And you should keep an eye on your results periodically. But not always. And you don't want to be running and chasing after results to get thirsty, blood hungry dog, right? That's not That's not what you want. You want something a little bit more sustainable, more consistent. And that is process oriented. That means developing a curiosity about the process and making sure that it's fun for you. So how would you do that? Well, this is going to be different for every activity that you're engaged in, but making sure that whatever it is that you're doing, first of all, it's at a sustainable pace. And by sustainable, I mean you could do it for the rest of your life. And it wouldn't cause you energy problems, it wouldn't cause you any sort of money problems, whatever. So making sure that you're at, you're going at a sustainable pace is always good. Another one is to really find ways to make it fun. So instead of worrying so much about being productive, think a little bit more about being fun, in whatever it is that you're doing. You're probably going to encounter points in your career or whatever you're trying to master is where you could either do one, do one scenario and be extra productive, or do another scenario have a little bit more fun, but less productivity. And if you're driving yourself hard, if you're high achiever, and you are focused on the result, you're going to be tricked into going for that highest productivity option, we're, in fact, maybe the better alternative is the one that's more fun, even though it produces less productivity in the short run. And the reason that is the reason you want to choose this latter option is because it's more sustainable again. And if it's more sustainable, you're gonna do it over a long period of time. And in the end, the volume of time that you put in is critical. So if I able to put in one year doing it this way, where it's high productivity, and I'm able to put in 10 years doing it this way, where it's slightly lower productivity, but more fun. Well, this 10 years is going to generate a lot more success for me in my life, most likely than this. The trick is to think longer term about it. Right? And to develop patience. And how do you do this? I mean, there's, there's more, there's many ways that I talked about more in depth in the article, if you read down below, but one of them is just developing a love for the minutiae of what you're doing. So even when you're repeating, and you're doing mundane things, that seem like little details that could be just easily glossed over. Well, the difference between the master and everybody else is at the master develops subtle distinctions. And he learns from constantly repeating the same things over and over again, that's what makes him the master eventually, because he's got the patience for it. In fact, he enjoys doing that. So it's not a challenge for him, it's a grind, it's a pleasure. It's not a grind. And everybody else, well, they're so eager, and so focused, so, so blood thirsty for results, that they, they pass up all the fun stuff, they pass up all the interesting stuff, all the mundane stuff, and that they just tend to jump on the result. And sometimes that will get you the result. But that's not going to be a consistent result. And it's almost like you're getting that without building yourself up, as well. So you can get results. But it doesn't mean that you've kind of built yourself up to deserve those results. And I don't mean in some moral sense. But I mean, in the sense that if you lost all those results, would you be able to easily go back and recreate them? Or would they be gone forever. And you would be fearful that you were just lucky that first time and that you would never be able to replicate that success. Again, with the Master, there is no worry about that because the master has grounded success in himself. Whereas the dabbler or anybody else has kind of stumbled their way to success. And they're living in fear because they never know when that success will be taken away from them. Many times it could be just through fluke, and they never know whether they can make it back or not. So just that the it's not the same in terms of consistency, the results are different. Also, it's about how you feel internally, the master is much more calm, because he enjoys what he's doing. Whereas the dabbler is almost attention deficit disorder. It's like borderline Attention Deficit Disorder, it's like you're jumping between one thing to the next thing to the next thing without ever sinking your teeth into something. And there's a certain richness, emotional richness that you get when there's something throughout your day that you can do that you really love. One of the best things about being on the mat on getting yourself on the mastery path and staying on it is that you're going to have these, these core skills that are going to be part of you forever. And that you're always going to keep adding to it adding to and that feels good, that process of adding on to something that you've already had. It's amazing. I love that feeling. It's like that's why I love personal development because I see every little bit that I assimilate from my environment. So every book I read is a little bit of extra information I added my brain makes me a little bit smarter, a little bit better able to deal with the stuff around me in the world. And you know, every every person I talk to a little I learn a little bit more from them. And every business I go into a little learn a little bit from that. And so over time, like I'm amassing, I'm amassing this, this power in myself through self development. And it's very gradual. Each, you know, each little piece is only a tiny fraction of the whole but if you do that for 1020 years, it adds up to a lot it adds up to amazing stuff in fact, it it makes people seem magical when you see somebody when you see a top performing athlete when you see a top, you know an amazing actor anybody really who's at that world class level, an amazing entrepreneur, it's usually because they've accreted through a process of accretion, they've really, they've come to mastery through this gradual process of adding a little piece by piece by piece, not by going out and finding one thing that gives it all to them. It wasn't a get rich, quick scheme, it wasn't a lottery, it wasn't. It wasn't something that just fell in their lap, they had to really work for it. And that's where, again, diligence and hard works, comes into play. So, you know, staying on the mastery path is challenging. And starting the mastery path is also challenging. So there are two challenges here. The reason starting the mastery path is challenging is because of this concept of homeostasis. So homeostasis is the tendency of your body to keep its to keep itself in its present state of, of being. So biologically, like your body is good at regulating his temperature, it tends to keep his temperature constant, regardless of whether you're out in the sun or you're you're in the cold. So that's kind of like biological homeostasis. We also have like a homey, homeostasis, a psychological homeostasis, which is your mind's tendency to keep itself in its own state of being. And so it really refuses to do new stuff, unless you push it out of the comfort zone to reset that thermostat, so you can think of your mind as a thermostat that has been set by by past experiences to a certain level where it's at right now. Now, if you want to shift it, let's say you want to start a new job, a new career. If you want to do your relationships in a totally different way, from the way you've done them before, if you want to maybe pick up a new hobby or new sport or improve your diet, well, that's gonna require shifting of the thermostat. And that is something that your body's going to naturally resist. So again, part of this whole idea of communicating mastery to you is just setting up the proper expectations. So one of the best antidotes against homeostasis, succumbing to the kind of the drag of homeostasis is just to expect that it's going to be there and to brace yourself, prepare yourself for it beforehand. So that if you're going to go to the gym, realize that the first few weeks are going to be tough. Realize that maybe if you're going to start going to the gym for the first time in your life, realize that maybe it's probably not a smart idea to at that point in time also start something else new Slyke, maybe you also want to go learn tennis, doing both of those simultaneously, probably not smart, because you're gonna be so worn out from the gym, you're not gonna be able to do the tennis or you're going to be so engaged with a tennis, you're not gonna have time for the gym, your body is going to react against those 212 changes in your life violently. And what's going to happen is it's going to send you reeling back to your comfort zone, and your thermostat is going to if it was here, it's going to bump up, and then it's going to bump and then your body will naturally but you're going to bump it up your higher self will bump it up and then your body will naturally bump it down. And see that back and forth that back in. It's like one step forward, one step back, you don't get anywhere you don't get progress. And eventually you get frustrated. And you just feel bad, you feel guilty, and you don't feel like you're as accomplished as you want to be. So instead, kind of realize that if you're going to shift your thermostat, if you're taking something new on in your life, first of all, recognize that it's a status thermostat shift. And if it is a thermostat shift, then recognize that, okay, this is something I actually have to plan for. I probably don't want to just wing this. So I'll try to set up my schedule so that I have time to be able to follow through on this Jim thing, I'll make sure that I have a little bit of extra time to do it, maybe I'll even take a little bit of time off of work to make sure that I follow through very consistently. So that's the kind of diligence that you need to put into it to be successful. Whereas if you're just gung ho about it, you just jump in there, like you people tend to do on a New Year's resolution after they stop themselves full of Turkey and taken and all that junk, then come January 1, they tend to jump on on the gym, and it doesn't stick, right. So mastery is critical to making stuff stick to making you successful in the long run towards generating the kind of value that you want to generate. The way I tend to think about value is that if I want to have an awesome life, if I want to travel if I want to have money, if I want to have good relationships, if I want to enjoy my day to day existence while I'm while I'm working at my job, so you know if I'm typing with a keyboard or whatever I'm doing if I want to really enjoy that, all those things have to be bought with effort in some way. And I tend I think that those have to be bought with mastery points basically. So you earn mastery points by, by, by diligent practice by diligently practicing whatever it is that you want to get good at. And eventually, over time, over months and years, you're going to get good at it. But if you expect to be good at it right off the bat, chances are you're setting yourself up for failure. And if you keep insisting on your stubborn ways, and you refuse to adopt the the mastery mindset, what's going to happen is that you're going to spend, you're going to waste years of your life frustrated, not making any progress doing that, that dance that one step forward, one step back dance, and you're gonna get fed up with it and eventually what might happen is that you just might kind of get disenchanted with that whole process of growth and you're gonna get you're gonna settle for for something mediocre and that is not what I want you to be doing. So that is it for mastery. I think I've covered that concept pretty well check out the article below there's a lot of in depth stuff including some images a link to the mastery book, and, and more in depth stuff that I wasn't really able to cover here through video. All right, for now, peace out